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Think Jo Nesbo and you think Harry Hole detective novels. Well perhaps not, but I did. With this book you get something very differen but so far enjoyable. I suppose you'd call the main character an anti hero, a man haunted by what he has done and what he failed to do.

I had to dive up. Halfway through and I still don't find the main character believable. At one point I started to believe that this was a book about someone going quietly round the bend. in the end I couldn't find the motivation to continue,

I was sucked in by the premise, but so far the main character seems barely credible.

The Beginning is, in parts, amusing and in parts, touching. It describes Elizabeth emerging from her grief.

This book is overly long and I've faound myself trying to identify the parts that would be left out when it goes to the small screen. After six hundred pages I;m getting a little tired of strike and Robin dancing around one another as they try to conceal their fellings for each other.

Almost a hundred pages in with 800 to go, This is a big bookbut as usual the author sucks you in. It's as much about the ralationship between strike and Robin as it is about the plot, but that's fine because they are intertwined. so here I am, just 10% in and I;m hooked.

Set in Edinburgh during lockdown Karen Pirie is desperate and her crew are desperate to find something other than daytime TV to occupy their minds, When a librarien finds sometrhing in a dead author's archive.

As an occasional writer of Crime Novels I thought I ought to read this and I can say that it's worth the read. The author not only talks about techniques but also details their origins and cases where their use was first accepted.

Peter May at his island best. Those who've read the Lewis Trilogy and his other stories set on Hebridean Ilands will love this. Although it is set on a small Canadian Island, the sleepless investigating officer is haunted by his great Grandfather's diaries.

I'm a bit put off by the cliche-ridden opening. An unarmed ex-ranger takes out three assailants on a train before returning home only to be asked to do a favour for his handler. The daughter of the handler's old army pal has been murdered. Our hero, Devine, is sent to investigate.. It just seemed such a hackneyed plot that I'm not hopeful. Time will tell.

First impressions are that the first chapter is completely unnecessary. Having said that from chapter 2 you get into the story and the author sets the scene within the gold mine very well. Sadly I've already been niggled by what is, for me, a shocking error. "Popeye dashed into the cabin and smacked his hand down on the button that earthed the magnetos on the big diesel engines" Diesel engines don't have magnetos.

First published in 1914 and what hits you first when reading this book is how little has changed in a hundred years. Although we now have a welfare state the attitudes of the people in tressels book still persist today.

f you're looking for a rollicking nautical adventure, this isn't it. I've got this far and have been treated to a couple of Whale hunts but in terms of adventure that's about it. I read somewhere that Melville had already written the book on whaling before he heard the tale of a whale that fought back. He then incor[porated the tale of Moby Dick into his existing book. It shows.

By golly it's hard going. I don't think this book would ever be published today. Certainly not unless an editor took an axe to much of it. So far I've read a chapter devoted to the description of an Inn. A chapter devoted to a preachers sermon. A chapter that was a eulogy for the whaling industry. Another to describe first mate Starbuck. and we still haven't set sail.

If you are looking for descriptive writing, this is it chapters and chapters of it. Melville uses a complete chapter to describe the Inn where he spends two nights. Another is devoted to the sermon in the seamen's chapel. it really is hard going.

Anyone looking for a tense prime suspect like detective novel will be disappointed. This is a tale of two brothers and the event that shaped their lives. As I read I keep seeing parallels with Willie Russell;s Blood Brothers

Only just got started. The first 7% of the book is taken up by the introduction and foreword